This invention relates to systems and methods for receiving and processing broadcast data, and more specifically to systems and methods for receiving and processing supplemental data associated with broadcast radio programs.
Many broadcast systems are capable of transmitting supplemental data associated with conventional radio broadcasts which may provide a receiving system with additional information about a received broadcast or about other receivable broadcasts. Examples of such systems are the Radio Data System (RDS) in Europe and the related Radio Broadcast Data System (RBDS) in North America. Such supplemental data may include information such as: a program identifier describing the program being broadcast (PI), which may also be used to identify the geographical availability of the program; the program service name (PS, typically the call letters of a broadcast station); the genre or program type (PTY); a list of alternate frequencies (AF); whether traffic condition announcements are being broadcast at a given time (TA) or are generally available on a frequency (TP, or traffic program); the time of day (CT, or clock time); a free text area left to the discretion of the transmitter (RT, or radio text); traffic data which permits a display of traffic conditions (TMC, or traffic message channel); information about other stations (EON, or enhanced other networks information); information about the country of origin of the transmission (ECC, or extended country code), the program item number (PIN), permitting the unique identification of a specific program by its PI and PIN; and data about the content and encoding of an audio signal, such as whether music or speech is being broadcast (MS), or data permitting the receiving system to switch individual decoders on or off, or to indicate whether the PTY code is dynamic (DI, or decoder identification).
However, both current systems and methods and the supplemental information provided are limited. For example, the seeking and selection of alternate frequencies or stations broadcasting supplemental traffic information such as TMC data, for example, may result in an interruption in station reception. Furthermore, the possibility exists that the alternative broadcast selected may not be the optimum choice available. In addition, information about other broadcast stations is left to the discretion of the transmitter, and does not provide complete information about other receivable broadcasts. It would therefore be desirable to have systems and methods which would better permit the reception and processing of supplemental broadcast data.